The purpose of this case study is twofold. First, the study explores the critical destination attributes that Curaçao, a small island destination (SID) located in the Caribbean region, must possess and satisfactorily perform in order to develop a sustainable competitive advantage. Second, the study compares various groups of tourism stakeholders’ (i.e. employees, managers, and residents) perceptions with those of tourists to determine whether there exist different views as to which SID attributes are of greatest importance to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage.

In 2010, Curaçao became an autonomous Caribbean island country via a change of constitutional status that dissolved the Netherland Antilles. Although Curaçao’s foreign policy is overseen by the Dutch government, the island is responsible for sustaining industries that may promote economic development for Curaçao. Like many island destinations located in the Caribbean, tourism emerged as a front runner to improve the economic status of the new country. The tourism industry boasts significant value to the island’s overall economic performance. Indeed, Curaçao’s tourism industry accounts for approximately 18% of the island’s GDP and 26% of the contribution to foreign exchange.

Since the country’s conception, tourism is the only industry that has steadily increased in foreign exchange over time (Figure 1). Therefore, to attract more tourists, Curaçao’s government has focused on concerting efforts that will continue to improve the destination’s tourism product portfolio. However, Curaçao’s government officials would like to make wise investments in the destination attributes that are important to tourists, and destination managers would like to know if the destination attributes are performing to standard. Curaçao cannot afford to make ill-advised investments in the development of SID attributes that may not warrant a competitive advantage. Thus, this study has a timely rationale for Curaçao and other SIDs that may be pursuing tourism as a form of economic development.

Figure 1: Growth of Curaçao’s economic sectors (2009-2013).

The study uses an importance-performance assessment (IPA) to determine the specific destination attributes that are important to tourists who arrive at a SID, as well as how the destination is performing with regard to the identified important attributes. The primary contribution of this study is to provide SID destination marketing organizations (DMOs) with an analysis framework that depicts the important destination attributes required to establish a competitive advantage. The comparison amongst groups may enable SID DMOs to holistically understand potential discrepancies amongst the stakeholders’ evaluation of important destination attributes and the performance of those attributes. This comparison may allow destination marketing managers to more appropriately allocate resources in areas that are required to improve tourists’ experiences [1].

Small island destinations (SIDs)

The ability for destination marketing managers to increase tourists’ overall satisfaction levels with a destination is always a concern, but becomes especially important in the context of SIDs. SIDs are defined as island destinations with a population of one million or less [2,3]. Due to their size, SIDs face similar market composition challenges to that of other forms of small economies that include: the absence of economies of scale, market vulnerability, reduced access to capital, macroeconomic dependency, overstatement of real income, and remoteness [4].

A benefit for most SIDs is that the islands are fortunate to possess a triple S product (i.e. sun, sand, and sea) that is appealing to a wide array of tourists [5]. Consequently, tourism is frequently used as an economic driver to assist SIDs’ economies in overcoming the aforementioned market composition challenges. Most SID marketing managers assume that the triple S (SSS) product should dictate the most important destination attributes for tourists arriving to these destinations: that is, the sun, sand, and sea should be the most important destination attributes for SIDs to market.

However, SIDs that carves the island’s tourism product from only these three attributes seem to struggle to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage over other island destinations [6]. This may be due to the fact that the universal appeal of the SSS product that is available in most SIDs is enough to qualify the destination as preferred, yet is not enough to diversify the tourist experience. In other words, the SSS product available in most SIDs is crafted to appeal to the masses rather than tailoring the product to the specific needs of the tourists [7].

A diversified tourist experience may extend beyond the traditional SSS destination attributes. For example, tourism stakeholders in a SID may feel that tourist’s weight the SSS attributes more heavily than what they actually do. This misperception may result in DMOs misallocating resources on destination attributes that are actually not all that important for tourists. The misallocation of resources means that managers may market a generic product. In the case of island destinations, marketing a generic SSS product does not provide a competitive means to differentiate destination product portfolios [8].

In order to avoid the misallocation of resources, destination managers should consider all stakeholders that are involved in the formation, composition, and evaluation of tourism related products. Previous studies have identified that in order for DMO’s to have a comprehensive and holistic understanding of destination performance, all stakeholders’ perceptions must be referenced regarding the measures of success for destination attributes [9-11]. This process requires collaborative efforts on behalf of all destination stakeholders in order to guarantee that the destination operates in a harmonic fashion with regard to economic, environment, social, and cultural sustainability.

Stakeholder theory [12] and its application to destination management suggests that any individual or group might influence the success of the destination objectives. Thus, it becomes imperative for DMOs located in SIDs to redesign themselves as organizations that take into consideration the stakeholders’ interests. This means that stakeholders cannot be exclusive to only tourists and the service personnel of tourism firms, but must be inclusive of residents who harbor the social and cultural heritage as well. This, then, allows the process to become one of a coordinating and optimizing entity. It is this all-inclusive state that will allow for a DMO to develop diversified, “all-inclusive” tourist experiences. Diversifying the tourist experience requires destination managers to identify and examine the important destination attributes and how they perform according to all stakeholders [13,14]. In short, by aligning the tourist perspective and the destination perspective (representative of all stakeholders), destination managers might more efficiently craft and promote the destination experience.

Increased destination competition does not seem to favor a mass tourism approach. The continued growth of newly emerging destinations and tourist arrivals on a worldwide scale has intensified competition among destinations [15,16]. So, where the sun, sand, and sea were once enough for an island destination to attract abundant tourists, these attributes do not provide an island with a competitive edge over other islands. Indeed, today’s tourists expect to consume a SSS product when arriving to a SID but also crave the consumption of diverse and unique tourist experiences. Therefore, a study that investigates potential differences between what tourism stakeholders feel is important to tourists and what tourists actually declare is important for their experience may provide guidance to SID DMOs that operate with constrained resources.

Destination attributes

According to Crouch and Ritchie [17], tourism destinations are comprised of products that facilitate and support the tourist experience (e.g. hotels, restaurants, transportation, attractions, shopping, etc.) These products are considered destination attributes. Destination attributes determine the attractiveness of a particular destination over that of others [18,19]. For example, a SID that has ease of airline access to the island may be considered more attractive than other destinations that do not have direct access to the island.

Additional destination attributes may include a destination’s infrastructure (e.g. roadways, signage, etc.), hospitality industry, heritage/culture, natural resources, climate, scenic flora and fauna, entertainment, and overall destination image (e.g. feelings and beliefs about the destination). In the case of SIDs, the destinations are usually considered attractive due to the destination attributes that relate to the geographic location of the island and its natural resources (pretty scenery, climate conditions, and overall SSS image of the destinations) [20]. However, the potency of these destination attributes is waning in the ability for SIDs to create a sustainable competitive advantage [21].

Establishing a competitive advantage does not only require the proper resource allocation to support important attributes, but also requires all stakeholders to understand which attributes are important to tourists in order to satisfy the tourist experience [22]. Therefore, the relative importance of each destination attribute to the overall experience should be investigated from multiple stakeholder perspectives in order to ensure that all stakeholders have a mutual understanding in order to enhance the tourist experience [23].

The case of Curaçao

Curaçao is a SID that is located in the Caribbean region. The island is located near the coastline of Venezuela in South America. The current population of Curaçao is 155,900 [24]. During the 1960’s, Curaçao’s tourism industry possessed a competitive advantage over other less developed islands in the region, such as Aruba and St. Maarten. However, as time progressed, these islands became more prominent in the tourism industry and Curaçao’s government leaders’ attention was deflected away from the tourism industry as a primary economic driver for the island to that of a more industrial focus (Table 1). As an example, from the 1970’s until recent years, Curaçao’s economy was largely steered by an oil refinery that is dependent upon Venezuelan operational support [25].

Table 1: Development of tourism in the Netherlands Antilles (‘000).
Source: van Soest [24].

Over the course of the last decade, the tourism industry has reemerged as a potential economic powerhouse for the island. This is due to some market instability with Curaçao’s main trade partner (Venezuela), as well as some other socio economic factors that influence the welfare of the local residents. Currently, Curaçao’s market position in the Caribbean region is nearly last when assessing tourists arrivals and expenditures [26]. Table 2 reveals the continued growth of Curaçao’s tourism sector in terms of arrivals and receipts.

Table 2: Curaçao’s tourism growth.
Source: https://www.curacao.com/en/directory/corporate/statistics-and-downloads/

In 2010, Curaçao became sovereign after separating from the Dutch Kingdom. Thus, the historic financial dependency on the Dutch to support the island’s economic welfare became the responsibility of Curaçao. By necessity, government officials explored alternative industries that might present financial security for the local island residents. The government officials expressed optimistic views that the tourism sector might provide a path of economic prosperity and emphasized that the DMO should focus on growing its tourism economy [27]. Hence, an immediate need surfaced for destination managers to learn the destination attributes that could be of importance to Curaçao’s tourists. It was also as important to unmask the perception of an appropriate tourism product configuration that could be adopted by all tourism stakeholders to ensure a positive tourist experience.

Importance-performance assessments (IPAs) have been widely applied within tourism research due to their straightforward and effective means of assisting industry professionals with the identification of destination attributes that are most important to tourists [28]. Further, they provide a measure of how well the destination performs in the identified important characteristics. This means that IPAs measure two tourists’ dimensions: 1) which attributes are the most important for a destination to proffer in order to attract tourists and, 2) the tourists’ perception of how the destination performs (e.g. satisfaction) in those attributes.

The measurement of these dimensions creates a type of checks and balances system for destination managers [29]. Moreover, the system enables managers to centrally concert efforts in infrastructural and service delivery improvements for those attributes that tourists declare to be the most important [30]. The IPA checks and balance system that considers what is important for tourists and how the destination performs in those areas provides a salient means for destination managers to understand how to best meet the needs and preferences of tourists. Thus, as tourists’ overall satisfaction level with a destination is increased, it is likely that the tourism firms earn a direct corresponding increase to the success of the destination and to their earned profit [31].

Further, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used for determining the existence of differences among independent populations. The current study applies the ANOVA test for the purposes of testing statistically significant differences amongst Curaçao’s stakeholders (tourists, employees, and managers) with regard to their perceptions of Curaçao’s performance in specific destination attributes. This is an important statistical analysis to use in order to learn if there are significant gaps between how the tourists perceive Curaçao’s performance versus how the internal stakeholders (employees and managers) perceive Curaçao’s performance. This statistical analysis will be performed by using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. SPSS is considered one of the most robust statistical packages with which to perform data analysis.

Survey design

First, the researchers reviewed literature that identified those traditional destination attributes that customarily assist tourists in determining an island destination’s level of attractiveness [32]. These destination attributes included: safety, beach, entertainment, heritage, hotels, restaurants, shopping, and transportation. The identified attributes from literature were then shared with a focus group that included six tourism experts in Curaçao consisting of: two destination marketing managers, one product development manager, two tourism officials, and one research director. The focus group was conducted within a two hour time period where the participants were asked to review the proposed list of destination attributes for relevance in the context of Curaçao.

The group of tourism experts confirmed the identified destination attributes as being relevant in the case of a tourist experience in Curaçao. The group of tourism experts requested that the researchers add esthetic appearance of the destination and the friendliness of the residents as important destination attributes. This request was based on the experts’ experience that Curaçao’s product configuration contains beautiful landscapes and sites that include high local and tourist interaction. The destination attributes that were assessed are presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Destination attributes for Curaçao.

A homogenous purposive sample consisting of 102 tourists, 103 employees, 102 residents, and 50 managers was then obtained. This sampling technique generally permits researchers to concentrate on people with defined characteristics. This in turn provides researchers with a better cross-section of information [33]. An intercept survey was used to collect the data. The tourists were approached at the airport prior to their flight departure from Curaçao. The employees and managers were asked to complete the survey at a tourism symposium held in Curaçao. The local residents were asked to complete the survey in the downtown area of Willemstad, Curaçao.

The participants were first asked to rate the importance of the 10 destination attributes using a five point scale anchored at 1 = unimportant and 5 = very important. In a separate section of the survey, the participants rated the performance of each attribute with a five point scale anchored at 1 = unsatisfied and 5 = very satisfied [34]. The survey also collected demographic information such as: gender, age, and educational level.

The IPA analysis revealed those destinations attributes that Curaçao’s tourists felt were the most important during their visit, as well as how Curaçao performed on those destination attributes. The IPA identified strengths and weaknesses of the destination in three phases. First, the attributes that assess the attractiveness of a SID were identified. Second, surveys were distributed to tourists to gather their perceptions of the importance and the performance for each of the selected attributes. Third, the importance and performance perceptions were presented graphically using a four-quadrant grid: the importance scale was placed on the vertical axis and the performance scale on the horizontal axis (Figure 3). The IPA uses the results of the survey to plot four quadrants. Each quadrant represents a different generic action strategy that might then provide guidance for destination managers.

Figure 3: Importance performance matrix for Curaçao.

Quadrant I, entitled, Concentrate Here, suggests taking action to change client perceptions of the attributes. Quadrant II, entitled, Keep Up the Good Work, suggests retaining current strategies as they already contribute positively to the sustainability of the business. Quadrant III, entitled, Low Priority, suggests that little effort should be focused on such actions as tourists have revealed little concern; thus, the actions pose insignificant influence on either the importance or performance of the attributes. Finally, Quadrant IV, entitled, Possible Overkill, suggests that efforts toward these attributes may be reduced. Following the recommendation from previous studies, the grid line placement in the matrix uses the grand mean for all scores [35].

The classifications of the destination attributes are displayed in Figure 3. The overall means for the importance and satisfaction attributes were 3.22 (SD 0.92) and 3.65 (SD 0.75). Table 3 presents the mean scores for each of the 10 destination attributes with regard to their importance and performance. When looking at the means for both importance and performance, all the scores from the latter are higher. However, pairwise comparisons indicate no significant differences for safety (MD=-0.059, t=-.513), esthetics (MD=-0.157, t=-1.34), restaurants (MD=-0.078, t=-.670), and transportation (MD=- 0.108, t=-.860). This means that for these attributes the perception of performance is not significantly higher than that of importance. Thus, the destination performance did not exceed the tourists’ preconceived expectations for those attributes.

Table 3: Perceptions of the Island.

In the case of Curaçao, the attributes requiring greater attention from destination managers include those that fall in the Concentrate Here classification (i.e., Quadrant I). The three attributes falling into this quadrant include safety, restaurants, and transportation. For the category of Low Priority (i.e., Quadrant III), the tourists reported relatively low importance and performance scores for entertainment, shopping, and esthetics. This means that the tourists may not be entirely aware of these destination attributes, and when exposed to these attributes are not exceedingly impressed by their performance. This may be critical insight for managers in that managerial resources could be shifted to other more meaningful attributes rather than expending those resources on insignificant endeavors.

Only one attribute fell into the Possible Overkill category (i.e., Quadrant IV.) This was the destination’s heritage. This implies that heritage was not necessarily important to tourists although Curaçao performed well in this attribute. The remaining three attributes were associated with the Keep Up the Good Work category (i.e., Quadrant II) and were highly rated in terms of importance and performance. The visitors perceived these three attributes (hotels, beaches, and friendliness) as critical and adequately performed by the destination.

In order to determine if there were statistical differences between the perceptions of the four groups (tourists, employees, managers, and the locals); the researchers proceeded to use an analysis of variance test (ANOVA). The ANOVA assessed whether there were statistically significant differences in the mean scores on destination attribute importance across the four groups. The results reveal statistically significant differences among the performance scores for six of the ten destination attributes. The four destination attributes that showed no significant differences between the four groups were the beaches, entertainment, hotels, and shopping.

With regard to the six destination attributes (safety, heritage, esthetics, friendliness, restaurants, and transportation) that tested statistically different across the four groups, heritage and restaurant’s mean scores were viewed by employees, managers, and locals as being more important for tourists than what tourists actually indicated. As for safety, locals and managers felt that safety was less important than what tourists felt. For the remaining three destination attributes (esthetics, friendliness, and transportation), only the managers had a different view of the relative importance of these attributes. That is, managers felt that esthetics and friendliness were more important for tourists, and felt that transportation was less important, while tourists indicated the inverse. The complete results for the ANOVA are presented in Table 3.

In the case of Curaçao, a newly forming country that intends to use the tourism industry as an economic engine for growth, it is necessary for all tourism stakeholders to understand which destination attributes are important for tourists. It is also necessary for the DMO to learn which destination attributes Curaçao is performing adequately and in accordance with tourists’ perceptions. As a SID, Curaçao possesses similar market constraints to that of other small economies. Thus, resources that are relatively scarce must be properly allocated to those destination attributes that will enhance the tourist experience. Moreover, the IPA revealed that Curaçao’s destination managers must concentrate on the quality of restaurants, safety, and transportation in order to bring into focus those attributes that tourist perceptions identified as being important and in need of adequate performance.

The discrepancy across the four groups (tourists, employees, managers, and locals) revealed some interesting results that may be used for Curaçao’s tourism product configuration. The ANOVA revealed that employees, locals, and managers would have emphasized heritage as being a destination attribute that requires focus. However, for tourists, heritage was listed as Possible Overkill. This means that while the tourists felt that the heritage component of tourism was adequately performing, heritage (as a destination attribute) was not that important for the tourists. This may be due to the discrepancy of how each of the groups defines their heritage tourism experience. Additionally, due to the infancy of Curaçao as a country, the tourists arriving to Curaçao may not be adequately informed about the existing heritage elements that comprise the Curaçao tourism experience. This means that the DMO must attempt to communicate and market the heritage related tourism products in order to educate the island’s tourists. However, it is important that managers identify the heritage components that will generate tourists’ interest and provide a competitive advantage to the destination.

Another important implication is the IPA quadrant that indicates destination attributes that are performing high and are also of high importance. This Quadrant, Keep Up the Good Work, contains beaches, local friendliness, and hotels. These destination attributes are not all revenue drivers for the destination. That is, while hotels are a direct major catalyst for economic growth, the beaches and the locals’ friendliness are accessible to tourists free of charge. Thus, while important to the tourists’ experience, such attributes do not contribute directly to economic growth. Resource allocation, instead, may need to focus on those attributes of the Concentrate Here Quadrant rated important for tourists but performing poorly: for example, transportation.

Ease of transportation may have the power to compel tourists to increase their experience in that it liberates their ability to access and survey more of the locale. In this case, it may be possible for Quadrant III’s, Low Priority (entertainment, shopping, esthetics), to emerge as part of a more direct contributor to economic growth as tourists gain their access. In this study, participants rated these attributes as low priority. However, it may be that the inaccessibility of adequate transportation (i.e. the low performance of the transportation sector) influenced tourist perceptions of the importance of the entertainment, shopping, and esthetics attributes. Moreover, Curaçao may be missing an opportunity to capitalize on income earning activities for the island, as well as in reducing any tourists’ dissatisfaction with their experience.

In the case of Curaçao, it does seem that the natural resources (i.e. sun, sand, and sea) that Curaçao has inherited as a SID located in the Caribbean region are highly important to tourists and are also performing high. This is valuable information for destination managers to learn in order to conserve beach accessibility and the beauty by the sea.

In conclusion, although the results cannot be generalized to other destinations due to the case study design of the current research, the findings do reveal that DMOs must be cognitive of the destination attributes that tourists value as important. It is necessary for destinations, especially in the context of SIDs that have scarce resources, to properly identify areas of concentration that will result in a competitive tourist product.

The IPA provides a simplistic means to identify potential areas (destination attributes) that require more or less attention from destination managers in order to satisfy tourists. When all tourism stakeholders understand the destination attributes that are important to tourists and understand how the overall destination is performing in those attributes, it allows the DMO to promote a complementary product that represents the tastes and preferences of tourists. In other words, destinations must strive to develop a complementary product that is defined as a product whose joint value is higher than its individual value [36]. In the absence of establishing a tourism product that has joint value, tourism stakeholders may experience a disconnection, not only among the destination stakeholders themselves, but also from tourists’ desires. This disconnect may be highly detrimental for a destination to successfully establish a competitive advantage [37].